From the October 2024 Parish Magazine
On the 9th October there will be a celebratory peal rung at St Marys.
The peal will be rung by a number of ringers in the Peterborough Guild of Church Bellringers who enjoy ringing peals, seeing them as the culmination of the art of ringing. In music there are tunes, in change ringing there are methods. These are similar to tunes but are based on mathematical models. The models define the sequence of changes that the bells undergo.
A peal is any ringing performance where the bells are rung continuously in over 5000 different sequences. This is done without visual aids. Every peal band has a conductor who at the correct point makes a call which changes the pattern of ringing. This is necessary since even the more complex methods begin to repeat themselves after a certain number of changes.
The peal will start with all of the bells ringing in order, the highest note through to the lowest note. After the first change this will not be repeated until the end of the peal, when all the bells return to their starting position. To achieve this using all eight bells it is normally necessary to ring a total of 5040 changes, never repeating a sequence of bells.
As can be understood this is quite a challenge and the band of ringers must be undisturbed by outside events as everyone involved needs to maintain full concentration on their ringing and the positioning of their bell.
To ring a peal successfully is both a mental and physical achievement, particularly when you remember that our tenor at St Mary’s Finedon weighs 21 cwt.
This peal is being rung to welcome Rev Morna Simpson to the parish and to celebrate 50 years since Fr Stan Haworth was ordained.
John Beresford Tower Captain
